Work

If you know me, then you know that I practically live off of energy drinks (and buffalo wings and ice cream)! Mike just gave me the best birthday present evAr! A case of Monster AND a case of Red Bull! AMAZING!
You should go to Mike and Kathy’s blog and tell them how much you wish you were tight with them, like I am!

So, if you’re like, “OH, SNAP! I forgot Christian’s turning OLD(er) this weekend!!”, I have a list of things that will give me like wood, best miter saw, and a bunch more but you probably won’t be able to find them very easily.

Stoked on being Pumped – C’mon! With a name like that, how bad can it be? Actually, the trailer made me want to go ride!

ThrillBillies – I imagine Brandon will be getting me this. It’s kind of a tradition that Brandon gets me the latest Nitro Circus DVD each year, but so far he hasn’t been able to get his hands on the goods. That means it’s fair game for you!

Dig BMX Magazine – This is one of my favorite magazines, but it’s a little on the pricey side. Except, it’s kind of not when you factor in the free t-shirt! I already have 2 of them, and am looking forward to a 3rd. Size XL, plz.

Widmer Hefeweizen – It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to drink one of these, and I really miss it! Supposedly, it’s sold in Florida, but I haven’t been able to find it on South Beach. Maybe your grocery store will be more fortunate.

Red Robin Seasoning– So, at Red Robin they have bottles of their special seasoning on the tables, and you can buy your own bottle to take home. I NEED SOME!! Unfortunately, the nearest Red Robin is in Georgia.

I thought I was going out again tonight, but I just looked at the clock, and my phone hasn’t rang, as far as I know, so I think it’s a safe bet to say that I’m staying in tonight, I guess I’ll just stay and look for home warranty companies in Texas since my mom keeps on telling me to do so. That’s probably a good thing because I think I have woken up hung over the past 7 mornings in a row! A break isn’t going to hurt.

So, I’ve been questioning Mac OS X.5 Leopard’s worth. Like, is it worth $130 or not? And it has been pretty hard for me to see that much value in it, but tonight something happened…

To be able to browse this folder (beware of goatse and tubgirl!) in coverflow mode really made it worth it for me. I was trying to find some old pics that I knew were in that directory, but I had no idea what the file names were. I had a local copy, so I just browsed it in my finder. I would find the images I was looking for, and drag them into another folder so I could note theri file names later on.

In this process, I realized that it’s been just over 2 years since I worked at District Lab. Here are a few pics from that era. (click on each pic for its original liveurinal post + more pics)

A client sends me a mock up along with the images to be used on their card. I start creating the card and realize that they didn’t send me one of the images that is in their mock up. I send them an email with an incomplete proof showing a blank space where the missing image should be, along with a note stating that I am missing one image.
They email me back with an image that they had already sent me, and is already on the proof. I email them back saying I already have that image and it is a different image I’m missing. Then they send me their mock up again! I email them again explaining once again that I already have the mock up… That’s how I made the proof. But I’m still missing one image.
Today they sent me another image saying “Is this the right image?”
Guess what…? IT’S NOT THE RIGHT IMAGE!!

hello, turn on brain, please! What the fuck is wrong with you? Look at your mock up, and compare it to the proof I sent you. Notice the difference? That one image missing? See that? That’s the image you need to send me, OK?

…so someone emails me 2 word documents that they want printed as posters, and I email them back saying we don’t print from Word and to please send a PDF or jpeg or whatever.
So then the brainiac calls me and the conversation went something like this…
Me: Well, we don’t print Word documents… I need a PDF or some sort of graphic file.
Them: Ok, if I bring you the file on a USB drive can you print it?
Me: Uh… Will it still be a Word document?
Them: Yes!
Me: No, we don’t print Word documents… I need a PDF or some sort of graphic file.
Them: Oh, you don’t print Word documents?
Me: …? No, we don’t.
Them: ok.
HELLO, TURN ON BRAIN PLZ!!

Me: Jules (or Jewles, as I like to call him), did you know that Hitler started the Holocaust because a Jewish prostitute gave him syphilis?
Jules: I don’t think that’s true. Where did you hear that?
Me: Digg!
Jules: (eyeroll) That’s just a conspiracy theory.
Me: Yeah, right! You just have trouble believing it because you don’t want to believe that a jewish prostitute would give anyone syphilis.
…
Me: Everyone knows that a JEWISH prostitute would charge extra for that!

Best email of the day!P.S.: Yes, I know I’m fat. No, I don’t plan on going on a diet! You’re right, trucker hats are SO 2002 zOMG!! And thank you for noticing that my sweet, sweet beard is totally going gray. What do you want from me? I’M (almost) OLD!

Almost every job I do has a proof that needs to be approved of before it is printed. A while back I made a proof for someone, they approved it, and we printed their composites. A couple of weeks later they realized that the date of birth on the card was wrong (5-2-03) and they wanted it reprinted with the correct DOB of 5-1-01. This made some sense since their mistake made the kid 2 years younger than she actually was, which could sway a booking. We reprinted it at no charge. Well, today I got an email saying that they messed up the DOB again, only this time the DOB needed to be 5-02-01 instead of 5-01-01.
Um… OK? This needs to be printed for a 3rd time because the DOB is off by one day?? I DON’T THINK SO! If this were some important legal document or something it would make sense. But a comp card for a 6 year old? Give me a break!

Believe it or not, it’s kind of important to spell things correctly when giving instructions. I took “blaack paper” to mean I was supposed to print something on black paper, which we don’t have, so I was like WTF?? It turns out that “blaack paper” actually says “blanck paper”, AKA, “blank paper”. Someone just wanted 10 sheets of paper.

I really wish I could post this video I just received in an email, but I cherish my job and the wealth that I have too much to risk “legal actions” again. Believe it or not, I am able to learn from my mistakes (which is not actually saying I ever made a mistake).
Anyways, in today’s email of the day, I received a video clip of a model doing the most horrendous runway walk I have ever seen. And while the video content is not so great, that’s not what makes this the email of the day… What makes this the email of the day is… How in the ToriAnus(.com!) do they expect me to put a video on their comp card??

In other internets news, Brandon is in Indy for a trade show so be on the lookout for pictures from there. (2 are already posted)
I am only a little bit envious. I mean, I have video clips of models and he has snow.

I finally emailed Apple’s customer relations about my iMac. Now I guess I just keep my fingers crossed that people will live up to their promises and my machine will get replaced. If not, I may have bought my last Mac.
I’m not overly upset that the thing has died four times now… Things happen. What I don’t like is how I have been treated over the thing. Like the Mac Genius sweating me like I was breaking the thing on purpose! I swear I haven’t dona anything to make this happen. If anything, did extra things to keep it from breaking. Like buying a new UPS when I was sure the one I had was fine. Every time it has died it’s been a big hassle. And this is 4 times now! And since I don’t have a car, getting it to the Apple store always involved bugging someone else to give me a ride to Aventura. TWICE per repair, actually, once to drop it off and once to pick it up. Of course now the Lincoln Road store helps because I can just take a taxi, but that still costs like $20 a shot. I can buy a lot of software online from with that money. The whole situation has been a big pain and I tried to ignore it for the longest time, but my 30 day trial of Photoshop for Windows is coming to an end so that prompted me to get things rolling with it again.
I REALLY hope everything works out!

WOW, some people are not so bright!
So I emailed a proof to this woman and then she replied with this:Hi Christian , looks good lets print 200 and do half with the logo and half no logo.oh I put the pic in the upload

Translated, that means she sent the same images (5, not one “pic”) I used to make the proof to the FTP. I have no idea why.
I sent her an email asking her if these were new images from the laser hair removal toronto clinic (knowing full well that they weren’t, since they look the same) and she replied:No the same one I don?t remember if I sent them to you in the up load
Uh… Ok, so how exactly do you think I made the proof if you didn’t send me the pics in the first place?? FOR FORK’S SAKE, PEOPLE? (Apparently I am not allowed to type swear words in my blog. I will be making a post about this at some point.) Try turning your brain on, OK? That’s like… Painting a house, showing it off to the home owner for approval, and then having the home owner dropping off 50 gallons of paint and saying “Ok, guys… Here’s the paint!” It wastes so much of my time trying to figure out what I am supposed to do.
I am having a hard time coming up with something polite to send in a reply to them.
And speaking of reply…
HELLO, It’s REPLY, not “re-apply”! Please don’t say “They’re going to send you an email and then you need to re-apply to them.” LEARN FORKING ENGLISH, YOU STUPID GUAT!
I mean, I am not so much the smrt… Never passed 9th grade english, but I still seem to get by ok.